Tempted By Fire

by Thea Devine

  She was sprawled seductively across the bed, and she raised herself on one elbow and turned her head as she heard his voice. Her heart started to pound with a defiant excitement. She hadn't expected him this night. Maybe she hadn't expected him ever again.

  "I did not forget," she whispered.

  "Then strip off your clothes and put on that gown. This is the second chance, huntress, and I am past patience with you

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  already from this afternoon."

  "I am comfortable as I am."

  "But I am not comfortable not seeing your naked breasts, Diana. Strip and put on the gown so that I may take my pleasure."

  She didn't move. No, she lay there, looking at him with that make me glow in her eyes that just begged him to force the issue.

  He couldn't wait. He hauled her off the bed and inserted his fingers between her breasts and ripped the robe and whatever it was she wore beneath fair off her body in one violent convulsive tear.

  "Get the gown."

  She could not argue now; she turned, lusciously naked except for her silky stockings and delicate slippers, and pulled open the door of the wardrobe and took out the gown.

  "Put it on.”

  She turned to face him as she inserted her arms into the sleeves, her breasts heaving, her nipples as stiff as two round hard pebbles, her blazing eyes inscrutable as the sky. Her body quivered as she fastened the undermidriff that lifted and crushed her breasts together, and then lowered her arms and faced him defiantly. "And now my lord has all that he wishes."

  "Not all, Diana," he contradicted softly. 'There is still the matter of your intractability, and the fact that I warned you not to test the limits of my good nature."

  "My lord's nature could hardly be called accommodating," she said slyly, dangerously. Oh why, oh why did she want to push him and push him, to goad him past the breaking point? His veneer of civility right at this moment was as brittle as ice. Was she deliberately looking to crack it so she could fall into the pond and drown?

  There was a thick tense sensual aura in the room: the scent of wanting, one; the other, who would break the ice?

  "No, huntress, that is the side of your nature which you must acknowledge by the terms of our bargain. I promised any deviation would be punished—" he reached for her once again, grasping her arms and pulling her forward to him, hard against his chest, "and it will be."

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  He sank onto the bed with her, and despite her flailing arms and her thrusting legs, he managed to turn her over his lap; the minute he pushed up the gauzy folds of her gown, she quieted.

  "What are you going to do?" she whispered.

  He stared at the ripe luscious line of her naked buttocks and the sweet secretive fold between. "I am going to exact the punishment you deserve for your disobedience, goddess. Even you warrant a spanking when you behave like a child."

  He lifted his hand and brought it down on her plush bare skin, once, twice—she squirmed and tried to shimmy away from him, and he brought down his other hand, hard, on the small of her back to prevent her escaping.

  Smack! Smack! Enough to sting, enough to command her submission to his bidding. Enough to make her feel explosive with anger and the desire to turn the tables on him once again because the action of subjugating her was so arousing to him.

  She saw the way. In a second, she squirreled her hand under her body and between his knees, groping for the rock hard bulge of his turgid manhood. Oh yes, that was the way; two fingers, three—she could stroke the tight taut sacs beneath his jutting member, and work her way up to the inflexible rod of his male root. And he would feel it.

  Smack! He felt it; his hand lay on her naked bottom as his elongating male length responded to the firm caressing touch of her fingers. He felt it: his hand began rubbing and stroking the firm cushion of her buttocks in tandem with her groping, knowing fingers.

  His knees parted to give her wider access to his throbbing erection, and she slipped her wanton fingers deep between his legs and began to fondle him every which way she could think of.

  He loved it; she could feel his tiny incremental moves of pleasure, his rhythmic caress of her naked buttocks. What a wonder this virile maleness was, how hard and thick and long it got; it moved against her fingers, almost as if it had a life of its own. In her mind's eye, she could see it, see him naked as he had been the previous several nights before, with this thrusting jutting proof of his prowess so primitive and male between them.

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  And she saw too that with her aggressive move, she had obtained momentary mastery over him.

  But not for long.

  "The goddess knows everything," he murmured hoarsely, "especially how to pleasure a man. It is a fine thing to give pleasure where and when one can," he added with irony, quoting her. "And to learn how to manipulate your way out of paying for your conceits. It is time to test whether your punishment taught you anything, Diana, besides where to find a man's weakest point. You may rest assured that I am strong enough not to give in to it. Now lay still."

  Her body tightened in resistance.

  He smacked her buttocks again, lightly, warningly, and she stopped squirming.

  He felt ready to erupt, but all he did was take advantage of having her laying compliantly across his lap, plotting her next devious move no doubt, but still and all, for the moment, surrendering to his will.

  Her lush curvy buttocks invited his caress, but he knew, he knew, the moment he ran his hands over them, he would be lost to her. Yet he wanted to be lost, and he wanted to give in. But she was not soft, not yielding. She was prickly and combative, and he would subjugate her, and make her plead for his kisses and beg for his favors, and then, finally, his fascination with her might abate.

  He gave in to the tempting allure of her buttocks, running his hands all over them and downward, to her thighs and her hosed legs, picking at the knitted garters of her stockings, sliding his hands under the silky covering and feeling the firm flesh of her leg, first one and then the other, becoming unbearably excited by the sight of her stockinged legs.

  He couldn't give into it: he couldn't.

  How could he not? She was the embodiment of desire, the goddess of temptresses, every inch of her the siren, enticing him beyond his endurance.

  Her questing hand became bolder, seeking the most hidden place between his legs; he reacted instantly, almost violently to

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  the feeling of a carnal caress where no woman's hand had ever ventured. He toppled her sideways, onto her back, and climbed up over her to straddle her body.

  "No, oh no," she hissed, immediately rolling onto her side to try to wriggle away.

  "Oh yes, oh yes," he growled, reaching out to grasp her leg and pull her back under his extended legs. "Don't move, Diana. I am stronger than you, and faster; you will not get away."

  She heaved herself up onto her elbows, and watched him through blazing, resentful eyes as he began to undress, stripping off each piece of clothing and tossing it every which way until he was wholly naked right before her insolent gaze.

  His huge, bulging manhood jutted out at her like a challenge, an enthralling reminder that it was she who had caressed it into rock hard male-proud tumescence. Her body reacted to it, her nipples peaking before her eyes into stiff taut points of pleasure; and her womanhood reacted to it with hot yielding sensations.

  And he reacted to her as he kneeled over her and watched the fertile excitement of his sex envelop her senses. "Your body cannot lie, Diana. You cannot hide the longing of your nipples, or the liquid heat of your need. You have only to ask for what you want."

  "I will not ask," she said through gritted teeth, her body shuddering with convulsive tension.

  He edged himself closer so that her whole world at that moment was the throbbing hard length of him. "This is the game, goddess. I command, you comply. Those are the terms of our bargain. I swore to have all of you. And you swore you were mine to command." He leaned forward
and cupped her lush thrusting breasts. "Beg for what you want, Diana."

  Oh, she hated him. He stood over her like some marble incarnation of male passion personified, as hard and as cold as a statue, as distant.

  But her body told her differently. Her body felt hot waves of excitement at the thought of even saying the forbidden, of crossing the line between what she was now, and what she would be were she to answer her body's sumptuous pressing desire.

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  "But you will," he murmured with arrogant surety, moving his hands over her breasts to lightly stroke her nipples, gossamer touches, tormenting caresses that sent a thick sensation of pleasure trickling through her.

  Her eyes closed, her body quivered. Her mouth did not move.

  If only he would squeeze . . .

  Her body writhed with invitation, the transparent gown falling away from her legs, exposing the lush mound of her femininity. Her body, compelled by the gorgeously sumptuous feelings he aroused in her taut hard nipples, mindlessly sought the next step in their erotic waltz.

  She could hardly bear the feeling in her nipples; it kept building and building and then suddenly it stopped at the very moment it might have peaked into something explosive and convulsive: he had removed his fingers.

  She forced back the feeling of hot resentment she felt; she felt abandoned, she felt desperate, but she would not beg.

  His eyes were implacable, flat, the banked desire flaming to life as he lifted one of her bare legs.

  "Lay back."

  She didn't want to do it; her arms were aching, and she would die before she would obey any command of his. She wanted to see everything, every last expression on his face, every last inch of his rampaging manhood.

  She wanted to see his eyes. There was a boiling point in a man of which women had no conception. She wanted to see it, she wanted to use it.

  He began to unravel the satin ties of her slipper. His hand shook as he braced her leg against his matte hairy chest and began slowly removing her long silky stockings, sliding them off inch by inch, savoring the feel of her leg under his hands until finally he reached her foot.

  And then the other, first the ties and then the slow sensual slide of silk down her leg . . .

  And she watched, and she wondered about the nature of a man's arousal and how just the mere act of undressing her leg made him hot and hard with lust.

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  And what if, she wondered as his shaking fingers removed the second stocking from her foot, she wore stockings and ribbons bound round her leg apart from the shoe. What if she wore silk and satin ribbons bound round her whole body? Would his hand tremble so tellingly? Could she, through the means of lacing her body with strips of satin and silk, subjugate him to her nakedness?

  The thought excited her beyond anything, and this was the nature of her arousal. When he came to her, as she conceived of the idea and as she envisioned the long snaking trails of satin winding around her naked body, she was soft and yielding, her thrusting breasts like twin does, inviting his hungry mouth, her body moving downward in concert with his.

  He surrounded her body, and dipped his head to feed on her succulent nipples and she writhed with pleasure as he took one into his mouth and began sucking it, and then the other, sucking, wetly sucking and drawing its taut tip still further and further into the wet heat of his mouth and the molten sensations in her nipples engulfed her all over again.

  His manhood nudged at her body, his knee easing her legs apart so that he could just slide himself gently within the satin fold of her most secret place.

  She felt it; she knew it. He had done this before with his hand and she had loved it. She braced her body, waiting for the next thrust when he would settle himself against that pure point of pleasure that sent her into silvery convulsions.

  But it was different this time. The thrust of him combined with his avid sucking on her turgid nipples sent hot waves of yearning through her. Her body lifted, of its own volition, to meet the angle of his entrance and with one long plunge, he possessed her, barely noting in his ramrod force the fragile barrier which hardly impeded his way.

  And so this was experience, she thought in the one hellish moment she felt the sharp tear of pain; and then she understood that his thick iron bar shaft was deep inside her, and her whole body stiffened and scrambled to get away.

  This was possession, this was the overtaking of the whole of a

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  person's body and soul and owning it. This, oh god, this . . . she let down her guard for a minute, thinking how she might overpower him, and he did this to her: turned her into a vassal enslaved by the mastery of his primitive male invasion.

  And she could not get away; his whole weight pressed her down into that thick luxurious mattress. She could not fight him; he held her, he had conquered her, and he triumphed.

  It was there in his face, the emotion in his eyes.

  "The goddess is mortal after all," he whispered.

  "The goddess is a vessel, nothing more, like any other woman," she spat, pushing at his hard hairy chest. "Get off of me. Get away from me."

  "But why should I? I have you now, Diana."

  "No . . ."

  "Yes." He began to move now and she felt a faint rim of excitement begin to expand within her.

  What was this, that she could fight to escape it, and then suddenly capitulate to it as it moved insidiously within her body?

  It crept up on her as she tried futilely to fight his carnal penetration and the pumping possessive movement of his body against her. It washed up and over her like an inexorable wave, carrying her with it, never letting her gasp for air. It was a tidal wave of feeling, utterly voluptuous, a cascade of sensation as if there were a waterfall of glittering hot points spangling all over her body and coming to rest someplace in the deep feminine fold of resistance that he held in his thrall.

  And it was different from before, and it was the same. She knew it and it was utterly wondrous, and it was all connected to him in this mysterious bonding of their bodies: the summit of experience.

  And he was not immune to it, either. There was something nascent deep in his eyes as he regarded her from the advantage of his elbow-supported height.

  "Goddess of desire," he murmured, "no longer immune to the pleasures of the flesh of her gratification in surrender."

  "Nonsense," she snapped, instantly feeling trapped by the betrayal of her body and his "cock-of-the-walk" smugness. "That

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  was not surrender. That was merely the opening of hostilities, my lord. That was nothing, purely nothing except your self-indulgence. You have proved it, my lord. You are stronger than I. Now, are we finished?"

  "By damn," he growled, "it would take a Hercules to deal with your insubordinate temper, Diana, but I swear I am up to the task. Perhaps this is but the fulfillment of the prophecy of the cards. Perhaps you even devised this entire seduction by tempting me to deny the destiny of my fortune."

  There was never a man as vexatious as he; she could not even dignify that goading remark with any kind of denial. "Are we finished?" she demanded, feeling her patience fragmenting as he did not move and he continued to look at her as if she were something he had never seen before.

  "No, Diana. We are but beginning."

  He lowered himself so that his mouth was but a breath away from hers.

  "We will see whether it was nothing, Diana," he murmured, as he thrust himself more tightly within her silken core. "We will see . . ." and he settled his mouth on hers tightly, invasively, commandingly.

  But why wasn't it over? she wondered as she fought with him, pushed him, beat at his shoulders, and bucked her body against the inexorable force of his manhood.

  But that served no purpose other than to embed his hard heat more deeply within her. It was a miracle how her body accommodated him, how the hard length and towering fullness of him was sheathed by the velvet haven of her femininity. It was unspeakably raw and elemental and she felt the resi
stance draining from her as his mouth possessed her as intensely and relentlessly as his volatile manhood possessed her body.

  She wanted to get away, she wanted to stay. Someplace in the explosiveness of their union, in the erotic fit of their bodies together, in her throbbing embrace of his towering erection, someplace there, something changed. Something slipped away from her—her sense of culmination eddied into something different, something devastatingly unexpected: the need for more.

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  It was as if the one fed the other, that having experienced that bone-melting pleasure, her body could remember it, recreate it, demand it be fed once again from the well of his sustenance.

  She hated her body for its betrayal of her mind, but even that was irrelevant to her gradual and shocking sense of his hot bare body pressing down on hers; his rough haired chest scraping her tender breasts; the nakedness of him deep deep within the carnal heat of her; the very openness of her body as it encompassed his lusty possession—all these feelings coalesced into one voluptuous slide of torrid yearning for his driving completion.

  Her body arched against him at the ravishing thought, pushing him still deeper into her womanly mystery.

  "Ah, Diana, how voracious you are—just like a goddess, taking, taking, taking," he whispered against her mouth. "But this time, you cannot command. This time, you must beg."

  "Never," she hissed.

  His tongue moved over the shape of her mouth, the very same lips that just defied him. "Soon this mutinous mouth will entreat me to unleash the pleasure of your body. You feel it now, Diana. Your body moves, languid with the heat of voluptuous yearning. You are so hot, so enticing. You have the power, goddess; all you need do is say the words."

  "I will not," she ground out; instantly he covered her mouth, muttering, "Silence, huntress; it is my game," and his hot wet kisses took her to a lush simulation of the duel between them and showed her just who would win in the end.

  And he did not move, except to thrust himself more tightly against her and deep, deep within her voluptuously enveloping sheath. He wanted her to feel him there in all his primitive nakedness; he wanted her to surrender to the torrid sensations of her body as he possessed her. He wanted all of her, he wanted to drain her so there would be nothing left for anyone else.